Like, Should We Be Worried?
by helpivefallenandicantgetup
Summary: Aiden's college roommate is . . . kind of weird? Outsider POV


". . . She's so great! She's a DG—Delta Gamma—and she's a biz-Econ major but she's, like, suuuuper laid-back. She even got me into that party at Theta where Caitlyn got thrown off the roof into the pool! I'm so glad that marine bio girl I was chatting with flaked on me."

Nodding along enthusiastically, the blonde boy straightened in his chair, switching which leg was resting on top. "Last year my roommate would eat sandwiches in the room and just throw the crusts under the bed. Apparently it was too difficult for him to, like, get up and cross the room to the trash can. Plus, I caught him bringing industrial-size bags of dog treats into the dorm twice and to this day I don't know what he did with them." The speaker turned to the third member of their group, who was staring in silence at the bobbing buoy-ropes separating the lanes as if wondering if there was a better name for them out there than "buoy-ropes." "Aiden!" the blonde—Darius—practically yelled (even though Aiden was sitting in a matching saggy-strapped blue pool chair about five feet away). "What's your roommate like?"

Aiden shifted uncomfortably. The moonlight outlined the tops of his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose in silver sharpie while the shifting blue light of the pool covered the lower half in the same swirling, hypnotizing patterns it threw across their clothes and the ground beneath them. "Well, I mean, he's, like, nice? Really funny, and he doesn't complain about my cleaning habits."

The girl snorted. "Or lack thereof, you mean. I'm pretty sure there's laundry on that floor that predates the college's founders."

He shot her the stink-eye, then looked to Darian for support. Darian just shrugged apologetically. "She's kinda right, man."

Aiden huffed and leaned forward, resting one slender golden-brown arm on his knee. "Yeah, well, anyway, he's cool and all, but he's just, like . . . really weird."

Interest sparked behind the haze in Maxie's (the dark-haired girl's) eyes. "What do you mean?"

Aiden chuckled bitterly and drained the can of cheap beer before beginning. "Well, to begin with, his name's Dick."

Maxie cackled. Darian winced sympathetically, smirking. "Oof. That's got to be tough."

"Yeah, I guess, but he could just go as, like, Rick or something. But trust me, I'm just getting started."

Maxie wrinkled her nose. "Can it really get much worse than that? That's like an immediate red flag for me."

"Well, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt!" Aiden argued. "But then I saw the knives—"

"Knives?!" chorused his two companions, shooting him wide-eyed, disbelieving looks.

"Yeah, man! The guy keeps a set of throwing knives in his desk drawer, and both times I've seen it it's been missing one. So either it's lost in a pile of laundry somewhere or he carries it with him everywhere, though I've never seen one in his pocket or anything."

"Woah!" Maxie enthused, looking impressed despite her next words. "Isn't that, like, against the rules or something?"

"Yeah, and that's where it gets even weirder! I asked the RA what to do if someone had knives on campus ('cause I don't want to snitch but I also don't want to die), and she was initially all appalled until she asked me which room I was in and I told her. Then her face went all funny like she'd eaten a lemon and she asked me who my roommate was, and I said Grayson. After that she muttered something about "special circumstances" and practically tried to run away from me. And when I finally insisted on an explanation she said, and I quote, 'Grayson can take care of his own problems.' Creepy as fuck, man!"

Darian had a new beer can in his hand and a look on his face similar to the one Aiden had just described. "Wait, Grayson as in Richard Grayson? As in ward of billionaire Bruce Wayne of Wayne Enterprises Richard Grayson?!"

Maxie piped up, "As in the Gotham Gossip's Best Butt on the East Coast for three years running Richard Grayson?!" The other two stared at her for a moment in silence. "What?! I keep up."

Aiden ignored Darian's retort, something about "zero shame" with which Maxie heartily agreed, and furrowed his brow, sending the moonlight dancing across the spiky tips of his hair. "Ward? Oh, that explains it. I made some comment about his parents and he kinda half-smiled and said they 'weren't around anymore.' Kind of a conversation-killer there."

Maxie nodded sagely. "That part." They sat in silence for a moment.

Darian broke it. "So his . . . foster dad? I guess? Is a billionaire. That explains the 'special circumstances,' I suppose. But what's with the knives?"

Maxie frowned, considering. "Maybe he's afraid of being kidnapped?" She shrugged and bounced in the chair, making the rubber straps squeak against the metal frame.

Darian hmmf-ed. "Is that it, though, A? Like, that's all super weird, but from the way you described it I was kind of expecting dead raccoons in the mini-fridge."

Aiden laughed. "Oh, no. There's more. So much more. Like, he's really jumpy? Not in like an obvious way, but whenever we're both in the room either he's watching me out of the corner of his eye or I feel like I'm being watched even though he's turned away. And the guy moves like a cat! I have never once heard him open the door and come in while I was there. Scares the crap out of me every time. I think he enjoys it, to be honest."

"Well, that's not really a big deal, and it sounds like it could all be in your head," Maxie objected.

"Well, yeah, I guess. But he also—I don't know if I should be telling you guys this, it's . . . like . . . kinda private? I think?" Aiden was now comfortably slurring his words, solidly tipsy. "But . . . whatever. He has these, like, screaming nightmares sometimes. Like, so far only two, but then other nights I'll wake up and he'll be sitting up in bed all rigid. Like . . . staring into space."

Maxie giggled. "God, that's creepy."

"Right? And like, the first time he woke me up was the only time I've ever seen him embarrassed. I told him, like, it's chill, it happens, but he still apologized to me like eight times. This is the guy who accidentally sat in that sophomore guy's lap right before Krasne's midterm and laughed it off like it was nothing."

Maxine muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "with an ass like that—," which Aiden chose to ignore while Darian nodded with the air of a philosopher to the ancients.

"Anyway," Aiden huffed, calling back their attention, "I guess when I say it all out loud it's not really that weird except for the knife thing. Still, there's just all these little things, like how when Matt on the football team challenged him to a pull-up contest he beat him by like sixty and ended with a fuckin' flip. Completely unnecessary, but you gotta admire his style. Still, the guy's just . . . off, somehow."

Perched precariously on a rooftop above them, Dick grinned. He'd been prowling around campus—years of living semi-nocturnally didn't get cured in a day, even when confronted with the hellish medicine of midterms (to be fair, the college lifestyle wasn't exactly conducive to healthy sleep patterns anyway)—when he'd overheard his name and "knives" in the same conversation. Any way you looked at it, that was bound to be an interesting conversation, though not really one he wanted to hear if _he_ wasn't what they meant by the name. Luckily, he had still stopped and melted into the shadows to listen. Now he internally struggled with the urge to Robin-cackle.

God, his roommate and his friends were going to love it when Dick's brothers came to visit.


End file.
